Solo to the Timeshare

So in efforts to ditch all the wonderful enema experience Celeste was having, I hightailed it North. As things turned out, Muniraji's driver gave Rydas, myself and a couple of others a lift to Haldwani and dropped me at the train station where I boarded what I hoped was the right train, a second class sleeper that I shared with a wonderful family (that spoke English) who were traveling North for a years job in the Life Insurance business. It's a good thing that I told them my plans. Because being the blond that I am, I thought my stop was at 3pm the next day. So after a delightful dinner that the family shared with me I pulled out my sleeping bag and settled in on the top bunk only to be awoke at 3AM for my stop in Ambola. (Now there's a blond moment of the week award if I ever had one). The family preceded to push me out the door with my sleeping bag and began throwing me my luggage and various other articles of clothing I had left on the train in my sleepy state.

Where the Hell was I and how was I gong to get out of there?

The train station also served as the dumping station for the rail's bathrooms so needless to say, the place reeked!. There were bodies sleeping everywhere and it was a humid 85+ degrees. I preceded to the A/C waiting room that was locked so I settled for the woman's waiting area by the bathrooms. At least they didn't stink nearly as bad. I waited with the geckos and mice for dawn to break before I set out to look for a taxi. I asked a security guard and he said to wait. Shortly thereafter, a young gentleman pulled up..."Taxi?" He gave me a lift to the timeshare for 1k rupees saying it was 3 hours away. It sounded about right, but was actually only1.5 hours, so he was paid well. That is, if he was really even a taxi driver. I think the security guard simply called a friend to make a couple of bucks.

In any event, he drove like a bat out of Hell with the tunes cranked and got me to where I need to be. Unfortunately, I had to wait two hours for the gondola to open before I could get up the hill to my room, so I read, half dozing, in the lobby. When I finally got there, I showered and climbed into my KING SIZE BED WITH PILLOWS and slept for 4 hours...pure Heaven after 2 weeks of sleeping on Ashram floors!

There I spent the next ten days integrating, meditating, reading and doing yoga. It was nice to be away from all the traffic and honking horns. I was the only white chick there so every time I made a move it did not go unnoticed, right down to what I ate. They even threw me a party for my Birthday, Birthday cake and all.

Well, I'm off on the next adventure, that is to get to Dheli, again by train, to meet Celeste to continue on to Kalcuta. I'm traveling by day this time, so no chance sleeping through my stop ;)

Until next time...Namastee, Prema